The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1887-06-30
munity. The question comes up
whether the community has not right
to guard itself against such manifest


whether the community has not right
to guard itself against such manifest
danger.
Our friends who believe in taxation
and high license have reached the point
at which they can see danger to the pub
lie from such establishments. They seek
to eliminate the worst class of saloons
and dives by the imposition of license,
or the levyipg of tax, sufficient to close
the majority of these low resorts. But
the imposition Of any license at all, or
any attempt of regulation of the tariff, is
veritable admission that the tariff
itself is wrong and vicious, and menace
to society. There is not any other
human occupation except, perhaps one,
which is limited and hedged about by
legal precautions, save that of Rum
selling. All other means of livelihood
are open to all people; any one may
enter upon them, untrammeled by legal
restraints and unfettered by bonds. The
plain, honest view of the matter is, that
if the business is right for any, it is right
for all; if it is wrong for any, it is wrong
for all. 1t should not be limited nor
regulated, but destroyed.
There is. no doubt but that taxation
and high license do good work in clos.
ing the lowest and worst of the saloons.
Hence, these methods may have their
place in the grand work of building up q
public sentiment hostile to the Rum
traffic. All great moral reforms are
slow in their progreps. 1t was so in the
anti.slavery struggle, but the end came
at last. Progress seems slow in the bat
tie against Rum, but the ultimate victory
is not the less sure and certain. Taxa
ton, regulation, aud high license are not
ends in themselves; they are merely
mile stones on the road to absolute
Prohibition. As we have pointed out
above, when the people give assent to
the restriction of the Rum traffic-admit
that it is an evil, an unmitigated curse,
something which has to be chained and
Grandchildren it is once admitted that
it is good to restrain this evil, to hedge
it about with limitations, there is no
escape from the logical conclusion that
it would be better to destroy it utterly.
When the question of personal liberty
comes up, the point to be considered is
not the liberty of the one man to drink
and of the other TO sell, but the right OF
these men to bring misery upon Others.
In this case, as in all others, the duty OF
the State is to so legislate as to do the
greatest good to the greatest number.
Now, the only men who are benefited by
the Rum traffic are the dealers and manu-.
facturers; the drinker is ruined in mind,
body and soul, and his family is reduced
to penury and want. For every Rumsel
ler there are at least one hundred drink.
ers; and it is certainly low estimate to
say that each drinker has influence
upon the lives of at least two other per.
sons-it may be wife and child, it may
be dependent father and mother, it may
be sister or younger brother. From
this it seems that while the Rum traffic
is profit to one person, viz: the saloon.
ist, it Injuries three hundred other people.
What shall our law. makers do-legislate
in favor of the one, or in favor of the
three hundred?
The personal liberty" cry is the mere
resource of the demagogue. 1t is his
intensiou merely to confuse the real issue
in the minds of the voting population
The highest liberty is the liberty of doing
right. The rum traffic is all wrong
There is not one shadow of real excuse
for its existence. 1t is traffic which
depends entirely upon the frailties and
follies of humanity. 1t is evil in itself
and its results, are evil. There is but
one thing to do with it, aud that is tc
crush it out. Let not the senseless itera'
ton of the personal liberty" plea, or o.
any other makeshift argument, deter an
honest citizen from aiding with both
voice and vote to destroy it utterly.